


the only way to go on

by lost_spook



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, Season/Series 10 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where there’s life there’s… duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the only way to go on

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Persiflage in a ficlet meme on LJ, who gave me the prompt: Ruth/Harry As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. They kill us for their sport. (King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1)
> 
> Post series. Spoilers for 10.06.

There’s a house with a green door, not far from the sea; a house that Harry Pearce will never live in, never fade away and die in. He visits it once, though, and plays with pictures of might have been in his mind, but that’s as far as he goes down that path.

What he does is to return to work and carry on. He’s always thought whatever god or gods there may be have more of a sense of irony than a sense of justice, or even a sense of humour. And as he sorts through the papers on his desk, the obvious quotation runs through his head: _As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, They kill us for their sport._ The benefits of grammar school, he muses wryly: an apposite quote for every occasion.

Or maybe it’s not the gods, maybe it’s her. She’s always eluded his grasp, and this is her choice not his. She decided his life was worth hers, just as once before she exchanged her name and career for his. He didn’t ask for it either time, didn’t want it. If she was here, he’d fiercely debate the matter – he’d talk about bloody-minded wrong-headedness and other damn fool traits he has no patience with. But there’s only a name on the memorial left to argue with and so she wins this time. Same as ever, Ruth, always finding ways to render him unguarded and unprepared.

So he’s left with life and the debt that goes with it, and he’ll pay it back until a bullet finally finds its mark – or he hangs around this place till he’s an embarrassment of seventy-odd and they present him with a ready-written resignation letter that only wants his signature.

He’ll do that, do his duty; he always has. And if he’s also made damn sure that he’s brought the murdering bastards to justice by unorthodox methods, that’s his business. He gives a grim smile. He has no idea whether she’d approve or not – eternally impossible to predict, his Ruth – and he doesn’t care. It’s him she saved, Harry Pearce, not the bloody Archbishop of Canterbury and he’s not about to be dictated to all the time, even by a ghost. 

But, God, how he hates that gaping hole in the grid where she ought to be.


End file.
